


a not-so gentle push

by emily_420



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Murasakibara's POV, there are other charas but they arent that important, theres a lot of food mentioned what else do you expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 02:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2564135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily_420/pseuds/emily_420
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murasakibara gets some help sorting himself out from an unlikely person. </p><p>aka: The Character Development That Never Happened In Canon ft. Murakiyo</p>
            </blockquote>





	a not-so gentle push

**Author's Note:**

> i did it... i actually finished something...

Atsushi got lost on his way back from the bathroom, ‘Once again,’ Liu commented when he came to fetch him, sent by their coach on a rescue mission. He’d been distracted by his thoughts and accidentally not taken the turn he was supposed to, but didn’t say anything in his defence, just allowed Liu to shunt him along impatiently and hitched his bag higher up his shoulder.

The stadium was practically overflowing with people, as always; it was still early in the rounds of the Interhigh and players from weaker schools were still hopeful that they could go a little further in the competition. Atsushi crunched irritably on his umaibo; always the same thing, always the same inequivalent ratio of dreams to skill – you slacked off all year, right? You missed practice because you didn’t feel like it how many times, but you still think you can go against us?

Atsushi swallowed and quickly shelved those thoughts, they had a match in about twenty minutes against a team with a transfer student from Brazil and he was looking forward to it, unlike the pathetic excuses for matches he’d had to watch the previous day. He’d gone out in the first quarter of both games but there was ultimately no point in him being there, even though their team was comparatively weaker without Fukui and Okamura they were still strong enough to manage without him. It was also a good opportunity to send out some more inexperienced players, though it certainly gave the impression that they were looking down on their opponent. (‘Well, we kind of are, aren’t we?’ Atsushi had said, and Araki whacked him across the back of his thighs with her shinai and said something about tact.)

They turn right, and, come to think of it, that _is_ the right way after all, and they’re passing other teams’ locker rooms as they head for their own when a door opens and out steps a familiar redhead.

“Ah,” Atsushi said, surprised, “it’s eyebrows.”

“Indeed,” Liu said coolly, poking Atsushi in the side; Atsushi knocked Liu’s arm away with his elbow and kept walking like his senpai wanted him to. Kagami ducked his head back into what was probably Seirin’s locker room, yelled at someone, then faced them properly and asserted, “Who are you reducing to two strips of hair?!”

“You,” Liu said, crossing his arms.

“In your case, I think it’s four strips of hair,” Atsushi pondered, taking another bite of umaibo. Cream stew flavour was really the best. Oh, but there was chocolate... Okay, maybe the second best...

“Is Kuro-chin here, then?” he asked, since Kagami looked pissed and he didn’t really want to deal with him.

“Uh, yeah,” Kagami said, held the door open a bit wider, turned his head to the side and called, “Kuroko!” and Kuroko stepped out of the locker room, looking exhausted and therefore happier and less serious than usual.

“Hey, Kuro-chin~,” Atsushi said; even if they didn’t get along when it came to basketball, he liked his old teammate and it was always good to see him.

“Hello, Murasakibara-kun,” Kuroko said, polite and blank-faced as ever.

“Did you win?” Because they’d obviously played already, Kuroko was in a T-shirt but he still had his one wristband on.

“Of course,” Kagami said arrogantly, apparently offended by the suggestion that there was a possibility that they’d lose so soon in the competition.

Kuroko, ignoring his light, said, “Yes,” quietly, determination flaring in his cool blue eyes.

“Good,” Atsushi said, just as quiet, before digging around in his bag for the pocky he _knew_ he hadn’t eaten yet. “I need to crush Kiyoshi properly this time.”

–Or so he told himself, but Atsushi had the vaguest suspicion that that wasn’t really what he was after. Either way, both light and shadow were staring at him with way more surprise than he thought that statement warranted.

“Um...” Kuroko looked to Kagami nervously, “Didn’t Kiyoshi-senpai tell you?”

“Tell me what? More like, why would we even talk to each other?” Atsushi didn’t get it; Kuroko was looking down sadly as if someone had died or something. But Kiyoshi had told him ‘let’s play again,’ so he had to be there, right?

“Kiyoshi-senpai... had a bad knee injury.” Kuroko looked him in the eye then, said, “Last year’s Winter Cup was the last high school tournament he was able to compete in.”

Atsushi felt his eyes widen; he hadn’t expected that, not even a little bit, not from the Kiyoshi Teppei he knew, the irritating Iron Heart that didn’t go down despite Atsushi’s best efforts to crush him. _I mean, sure, he fell down and couldn’t get up in our last match, but..._ But Atsushi had assumed that Kiyoshi had been exhausted by the tough game, and that was it.

“That’s ridiculous,” Atsushi hears himself say. “Then why did he say ‘let’s play again’? What’s with that?”

“He probably meant it,” Kagami said; Atsushi switched his gaze to the red-head. “I mean, I’m just guessing, but he probably meant he wanted to play you again eventually, even if it’s not official.”

Atsushi mulled that over for a few moments, in the end unable to come to any other conclusion than that Kiyoshi Teppei was the one true master of pissing him off, and moved to walk past Kuroko and Kagami, saying, “If you see him tell him that he’s an idiot,” while finally pulling out his pocky and breaking the box open.

“Don’t get too fired up,” Liu warned him, following after him.

“As if I would,” Atsushi said, _not over that guy._

.

Atsushi got a text from Kuroko not too long after that, one that was short and plain, reading simply, “Do you still think that basketball is boring?”

Sitting in the midst of his team, clothes everywhere and the smell of feet and deodorant in the air, Atsushi felt justifiably annoyed hat his former teammate was still pushing the point. Because of that, and with a little vindictiveness, Atsushi typed his standard response to the years-old question. “Are you still going on about that?”

And yet, almost immediately after sending that text, Atsushi had an inexplicable urge to compose another. His mind blanked momentarily as he stared at the empty box, the text marker blinking patiently up at him, but then, all at once, and as if with a mind of their own, his thumbs tapped out: “it’s alright.”

In Seirin’s locker room, Kuroko Tetsuya smiled to himself.

.

More or less half a year after that was the Winter Cup, which Atsushi walked into feeling pretty mellow – a combined result of the bus ride to the stadium from the hotel they were staying in and the reassurance that he didn’t need to play for a while. They’ve seeded in the top eight from the Inter High again, but Araki was firm on the fact that she wanted them all to go anyway to get a firsthand look at some of the competition. When a first year had the nerve to suggest that they probably wouldn’t end up playing ‘those weaker teams,’ their coach snapped at him, “Look what happened with Seirin, and he changed his tune pretty quickly.

Anyway, it was half-time of a weak school vs. weak school match, and even if it was close, it sure as hell wasn’t interesting . Atsushi was on drink duty, they’d shooed him out of the stands with money and their choices, so he meandered through some halls until he got to the closest vending machine. It was a bit of a pain in the ass, really, considering that he had to remember both the drinks everyone wanted and the amount of money each of them had given him, but Atsushi guessed that they sent him because they knew he had a good memory.

It was as he was retrieving Liu’s can of coffee from the chute at the bottom of the machine that he hear an irritatingly familiar voice from down the hall to his left call, “Oh, how about that, it’s just who I was hoping to run into.”

Atsushi gritted his teeth, straightened himself up snf shoved the can into a bag one of his teammates had leant to carry the drinks. “What do you want now?” Atsushi asked Kiyoshi, not looking at him and focusing on pushing coins into the vending machine for a kouhai’s soda.

”You know, I think ‘idiot’ is a bit harsh,” Kiyoshi said conversationally, not answering  his question in the slightest.

“I don’t,” Atsushi grumbled, still not looking at Kiyoshi. “Anyway, don’t ignore me. What do you want?”

“I was just hoping to clear some things up with you,” Kiyoshi said, and Atsushi turned to look at him at last; he looked relaxed, hands in his pockets and an easy smile on his face.

“Really? Go ahead then,” Atsushi said dully, not too annoyed but deeply wishing that Kiyoshi would just say what he wanted and then leave him be.

“Well...” Kiyoshi’s smile faded away, “Have you changed your mind about basketball yet?”

“Yet? Was I meant to?”

“Murasakibara...” Kiyoshi frowned. “You know you’re not fooling anyone, right?”

And that sounded so similar to what Atsushi had said to Himuro once that he ticked over from mildly displeased to kind of angry, eyes widening in surprise; even though there was absolutely no relation between that conversation and Kiyoshi’s question – he wasn’t there, after all, couldn’t possibly know what had been said – Atsushi was left with the uncomfortable feeling that Kiyoshi could see through him, knew every part of him, and he hated it.

“About what?” Atsushi asked aggressively, before turning back to the machine, not wanting to look at Kiyoshi’s vaguely concerned face. “Actually, you know what, I don’t care. I’ve never cared about what anyone thought about the way I play basketball before, and I don’t now.”

“Not about the way you play,” Kiyoshi said insistently, “but about your attitude towards it.” Atsushi stared blankly at a carton of milk; was that really happening? Was Kiyoshi freaking Teppei seriously about to preach to him?

“If you really thought that basketball is an awful sport, then that’s be fine by me – I might not have liked it, but I wouldn’t have said anything. But the way you are – the way you clearly like basketball deep down while going on about how cruel it is – honestly, it’s painful to watch.”

“Don’t watch, then,” Atsushi offered airily enough despite his mood.

“ _Murasakibara_ ,” Kiyoshi emphasised; the machine still needed another fifty yen, and Atushi held the silver coin between his thumb and the side of his forefinger and pointed it at Kiyoshi as he spoke next.

“Actually, isn’t this none of your business? Who cares if I like it or not? Why does it matter to you?”

Kiyoshi looked caught off guard by that, like he didn’t think he’d be asked and didn’t even really have an answer; his eyebrows shot up and he scratched his head thoughtfully. “Well... I guess it frustrated me? I mean...” he pulled his hand out of his hair and held it in from of him, palm up, “you play really well, so if you just stopped being stubborn and admitted that you like it,” there Kiyoshi looked him meaningfully in the eye, “you could be having _so much fun_. And I don’t understand why you would choose to play a sport that you supposedly don’t like just for the hell of it when you _could_ be playing a sport you do like and having a good time.” 

Atsushi stared flatly at him for a moment, then gave a long sigh. “Man, you’re seriously so... If having fun is what this is about, you might as well just give up. Who’d have fun playing basketball? You run around for an hour getting sweaty and tired for no reason. Sorry, but that’s not what I’m into.”

As he was turning back to the machine, Kiyoshi said something that mad Atsushi freeze. “You went into the Zone, though.”

“Shut up,” Atsushi said lowly.

“You did, though,” Kiyoshi continued persistently, “and the basic condition to enter the Zone is to love basketball. So–”

“I told you to shut up!” Atsushi snapped, whipping back around to glaring at Kiyoshi. “I’m just – I must just be different from the others that went in. _That’s all_.”

“I don’t understand why you’re still talking like that,” Kiyoshi said levelly, returning his glare full force. “Murasakibara, you told me that you don’t understand people that try hard when they can’t win. What I can’t understand is people who don’t enjoy things that they can do well – I don’t get why you would play basketball if you don’t enjoy winning.”

“I – it’s not like I want to lose,” Murasakibara said, a little embarrassed as he remembered their loss to Seirin because he’d cried in front of everyone; even Kiyoshi had seen that and he couldn’t deny that it had been painful.

“So you don’t care about winning but you don’t want to lose?” Kiyoshi sounded angry as well as frustrated. “Aren’t you just lying to yourself?”

“What? No, don’t be stupid. Why would I do that?”

“That’s what I want to know,” Kiyoshi said. “What _possible_ benefit is there to denying yourself positive emotions towards something you clearly care about? Something like that won’t make you any stronger; it’ll only make you hollow.”

They stared at each other in a sort of deadlock, Atsushi’s mind racing and his pulse certainly quicker than it out to be, until Kiyoshi’s phone rang and cut through the thick tension between them. “Oh, Riko,” Kiyoshi was saying into his phone, turned slightly away from Atsushi and staring at the wall as he focussed on the conversation. “Yeah, it’s fine,” he said, “I was done here anyway.”

A few short words later, Kiyoshi was putting his phone back in his pocket and walking past Atsushi, towards the stadium. He paused, though, just for a second, to put his hand on Atsushi’s shoulder and said, quiet and serious and not looking at him, “You should think about it,” and all that passes through Atsushi’s shocked mind is that Kiyoshi smells surprisingly good when he isn’t playing basketball.

(Atsushi got yelled at for taking too long just to buy drinks.)

.

The room that Atsushi was staying in at the hotel was meant for four people, but they had an uneven number of people on their team so it was just him, Himuro and Liu sharing two double beds. Liu got a bed to himself, mostly because he’d said so upfront that that’s how it was going to go and didn’t back down when Atsushi half-heartedly argued for it – he liked to have extra room to stretch his legs out, but Liu had the argument that they were almost the same height. In any case, he lost, and was stuck curling up next to Himuro.

It was a cold night but the covers on the bed and Himuro next to him meant that Atsushi was comfortably warm, and under such conditions he’d usually fall asleep straight away but it wasn’t happening, his mind kept going back over everything Kiyoshi had said to him and it was making him feel slightly queasy. Over the last year – ever since he lost to Seirin – his feelings towards basketball had been slowly shifting; he could recognise that basketball was alright, could see that hard work can pay off if you have some talent, could even grudgingly admit that he wanted to keep playing. Did that mean that he liked winning, though? At what point did you cross the line to liking it? How do you actually gauge your enjoyment of something? Atsushi wasn’t sure that he liked basketball as much as the people around him seemed to be implying; there was no way basketball was as good as eating candy. Right?

“...Muro-chin?”  Atsushi said quietly, unsure of whether or not the other boy was asleep yet.

Himuro shifted around next to him, said sleepily, “Mmm? What is it, Atsushi?”

Atushi thought for a few moments about how to frame a question that would potentially help him with all his issues, since he hadn’t actually done so before calling out. “How do you feel about basketball?’

“What?” Himuro, sounding more awake, shifted around some more, and going by the rough shadow that was all Atsushi could see of him, had propped his head up with his arm. “Isn’t it obvious? I love it. You know that.”

“Yeah, but like...” Atsushi suddenly felt really uncomfortable, “how do you know that?”

“Well,” there was a sort of _fwump_ noise, Atushi assumed that Himuro fell to lay on his back and imagined that he was staring up at the dark ceiling, “I just feel good when I’m doing it. I like practicing, and I like playing – I always look forward to it. Why?”

“No, no reason,” Atushi said, feeling more confused than ever.

He didn’t fall asleep until half an hour later.

.

The following morning, when Himuro was out of the room to talk to someone else, Atsushi and Liu, who had only just woken, were brushing their teeth in the bathroom.

“By the way,” Liu started after he’d rinsed his mouth out, looking in the mirror intently and messing with his hair while Atsushi was still brushing, “you shouldn’t think that the way Himuro feels is the way everyone who likes basketball feels. I like basketball but I hate practice most of the time and I don’t always feel like playing.”

“Oh, so you were awake,” Atsushi said through a mouth full of toothpaste and around his toothbrush; Liu eyed him with disgust.

“I know I’m being supportive and all right now but you really shouldn’t talk like that,” Liu said. “Anyway, I’m just telling so you don’t try and oversimplify things. You can have first shower,” and with that he left Atsushi to his thoughts.

.

Atsushi didn’t see Kiyoshi over the days that followed, but he did spend an awful lot of time thinking about him. It was annoying, actually, the way that Kiyoshi had come into his life as someone he couldn’t care less about only to forcibly steal his attention away from host other things, especially so when Atsushi’s stomach flip-flopped oddly and the memory of his nice smell and his convincing, straight-forward eyes. He didn’t know what that was about but he _did_ know that it was a extremely unwelcome sensation.

Yosen didn’t win that tournament, either; they lost out to Shuutoku, who had gone on to win the whole thing. Kuroko somehow found him in the stands – actually, he was huge and had purple hair, it was probably a piece of cake – leading a small herd of people and invited him to play some steet-ball with them. Atsushi’s team wasn’t going back to Akita until the following day, so he agreed easily, and Kuroko looked somewhat surprised and very pleased.

The little group that Atsushi’s former teammate was leading around consisted of Akashi, Kagami, Aomine, Kise, and, surprisingly, Rakuzan’s Hayama. He didn’t question that though, just guessed that he was tagging along with Akashi and left it at that.

It was a bit of a struggle for them to get out of the stadium, maybe because it was the finals and there were a lot of people there, maybe because every ten metres Kise was stopped by someone who wanted to talk. Atushsi almost made a wrong turn at one point because he was distracted by the chips he was eating, but Aomine grabbed his sleeve and tugged his along, grumbling, “Man, you really never change.”

 _That’s not true,_ Atsushi thought. _I used to..._ Hate basketball. A little dazed, Atsushi realised that that was the first time he’d acknowledged that he enjoyed basketball, and it wasn’t even conscious. _Geez,_ he thought to himself, eating another chip with a smile as he pictured Kiyoshi, Kuroko and Himuro in his head. _You guys have really influenced me, you know?_

.

There were some courts outside the stadium, on the opposite side of the building to the carpark, and they went there, everyone chatting and laughing and teasing and trying to trip each other; Atsushi stayed a bit to the outside of all of that but it was a nice atmosphere and he appreciated it.

Once they got there, the others started talking about what sort of game to play.

“Three on three, right?” Aomine said.

“There’s seven of us,” Kuroko said indignantly. “Aomine-kun, can’t you even count?”

“Ah, Kurokocchi, I’m not playing remember?” Kise said, standing next to Hayama.

“What?” Hayama exclaimed, quickly turning to look incredulously up at Kise. “I wanted to play you! Are you kidding?”

“I don’t have a change of clothes!” Kise argued. “I can’t play in this!”

“Oh my god...” Kagami muttered.

“Isn’t that fine, then?” Atsushi butted in. “That makes six.”

“Weren’t we waiting for two more, Kuroko?” Akashi asked.

“Yes, they were getting a ball...”

“Didn’t Izuki say he just wanted to watch?” Kagami asked.

While they continued their fruitless conversation, Atsushi parked it on the nearby steps after taking his empty chip packet to the bin. “Oi, Murasakibara, what are you doing?” Aomine called over to him as he opened a pocky box.

“Let me know when we’re ready to start,” he yelled back, sticking the chocolate-covered snack in his mouth and letting his eyes drift over what he could see of the sky; it was afternoon, probably about three o’clock, and the sun was getting lower.

As he sat there, Atsushi felt pretty peaceful, more so than he had been in the previous few days; it was a kind of inner peace that he usually got when napping. He knew that it was probably due to his realisation that he did, in fact, like playing basketball, and even if it pained him to admit that, even to himself, it was the truth and Atsushi was doing his best to accept it.

“Oh, you’re here too,” came a pleasantly surprised voice from the top of the stairs; Atsushi turned to look with a small confused sound to see Kiyoshi and Seirin’s point guard – whatever his name was, maybe that was Izuki? – making their way down, Kiyoshi with the ball.

“You go on ahead,” he told the black-haired boy with him, handing him the ball.

“Are you sure?” he asked nervously, eyeing Atsushi as if he was something to be afraid of.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Kiyoshi said, shooing him along before sitting down next to Atsushi.

They sat in mutual silence for a while, watching Izuki head over to the others, passing the ball to Aomine before he reached them. Kiyoshi, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, was the one to break it. “So... I’m sorry about last time.”

Atsushi shrugged somewhat self-consciously even though Kiyoshi wasn’t looking at him, said, “Don’t worry about it, I guess.” And then, in what was probably the largest and only show of gratitude he would offer Kiyoshi for helping him sort himself out, Atsushi held out the box of pocky, said, “Want some?”

“Oh, this takes me back,” Kiyoshi said, leaning back and taking a stick of the proffered snack.

“To what?”

“In middle school,” Kiyoshi started, nibbling thoughtfully on the pocky, “...well, the end of middle school, everyone played the pocky game a lot.”

“That game’s annoying,” Atsushi said frankly, snapping off his own pocky. “If you want to kiss someone you should just kiss them, it’s annoying when people try and make excuses for that stuff.”

“You think so?” Kiyoshi asked, smiling softly at him. “Well, that makes it easier then...” He was leaning towards Atsushi, getting closer slowly enough for Atsushi to make him stop if he wanted to, but instead he leaned down a bit himself, eyelids fluttering, to meet Kiyoshi’s lips with his own. Kiyoshi’s lips were warm, and Atsushi’s cheeks were flushed and he couldn’t seem to shut his eyes all the way until Kiyoshi sighed happily; with his eyes closed Atsushi was very aware that Kiyoshi smelt as good as the last time he’d seen him and that his lips were softer than Atsushi’s. With his eyes shut, Atsushi also couldn’t help but notice emotion flaring in his chest, his pulse climbing and not a small amount of excitement filling him.

“Oh, boy,” Kiyoshi said, Exhaling hard and smiling even more calmly before once they’d pulled away. “I sure hope they weren’t looking over here.”

“Who cares?” Atsushi said, a bit giddy. Kiyoshi just laughed.

“Oi!!” Atsushi looked over to the court; Aomine was waving at them. “Get over here, we’re ready!!”

“Ah,” Kiyoshi said shortly. “Well, I guess we can talk later.”

“Yeah," Atsushi agreed, accepting Kiyoshi’s hand as he helped him up, that time.

**Author's Note:**

> didn't proofread so i apologise for any mistakes/typos


End file.
